Comments on: WordPress And Subversion A Perfect Match

By: Weekly Links #13 | GrantPalin.com

Weekly Links #13 | GrantPalin.com — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:03:55 +0000

[...] How To Upgrade WordPress Using Subversion Been wanting to try this for a while. A good walkthrough. [via] [...]

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:37:10 +0000

Time to find a new host then? Subversion is hardly bleeding edge, it really ought to be installed as standard these days on any Linux server. Or are you on Windows?

By: Danny Thorpe

Danny Thorpe — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:48:46 +0000

The main catch for using Subversion to update your WordPress installation is that Subversion requires root access at installation, so you can’t install it on a hosted web site yourself. I’d love to use Subversion to keep my WordPress sites up to date, but my host doesn’t support Subversion!

By: Otto

Otto — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:51:43 +0000

I have to disagree as well. I run the latest trunk on my own personal blog, because if that one breaks, then it’s not a particularly big deal to me.

For my production level blogs, I run the latest “branch” from the repository and have it update once or twice a week.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:58:19 +0000

Just did this myself a few days ago - go for stable 2.6 gentlemen! Then it works like a charm in a few steps. If you stay on the path SVN is not complicated (As somebody consuming WP 2.6 you most probably are not dealing with all its “check in” options).
I came back from a hosted solution and WP over SVN made this a comparable easy solution that is easy and painless to upgrade. Check out my experiences here: http://www.tomschlenkhoff.com/.....trackback/

By: amolpatil2k

amolpatil2k — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:56:21 +0000

The problem with automating anything is learning to trust it. Few people can manage to do that. With PCs and the Net, so much can go wrong that we fall into the weakest link well of distrust. On the other hand, if someone can invent some sort of interactive automation a la “Master, I am about to make such and such changes, things might not work out, have you backed up, okay then let’s do it” then we would have more time to do the more interesting things.

By: Dominic Mitchell

Dominic Mitchell — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:36:33 +0000

I maintain a wordpress blog using git. I just track the tarballs and it's pretty simple. The tracking is not 100% obvious, so I wrote a post on how to do it: vendor branches in git. Although frankly, it would probably be simpler to use git-svn to track the subversion repository.

By: Jens Wedin

Jens Wedin — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:26:49 +0000

…and the link of course
http://www.md1clv.com/2008/04/.....using-git/

By: Jens Wedin

Jens Wedin — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:26:14 +0000

Has anyone tried this out with Git instead?
I found this article, any pro / con?

By: Omar

Omar — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 06:40:58 +0000

i’ve been using subversion for the various wordpress-installs on my server for quite some time and i think there is nothing better than that. I get to chose which version i want to follow (mostly 2.6-branch and trunk) and bugs are being squashed by the day. Also updating to a new version is hilariously easy.

By: Viper007Bond

Viper007Bond — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:03:56 +0000

Yeah, it’s kinda funny how many people “discover” SVN.

By: Viper007Bond

Viper007Bond — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:02:49 +0000

I disagree. I run a “nightly build” (although there’s no such thing with SVN) of the 2.6 branch on my blog and I run trunk on all of my development blogs.

By: Andrew - Attorney in Fredericksburg

Andrew - Attorney in Fredericksburg — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:54:10 +0000

Subversion is a complicated beast, but incredibly powerful.

If you’re maintaining sites for clients, why not just use WordPress Automatic Update?

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:18:15 +0000

You are all nuts. Read the WordPress Codex article on installing with Subversion:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Ins.....Subversion

*Hint* You use Subversion to update to the latest STABLE releases so you don’t really have to backup or use FTP (I still backup, you can never be too safe). It is way easier that FTPing up and updating, especially when you manage lots of WordPress sites for clients.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:03:05 +0000

re: those above me. Nowhere in the original post did it say anything about doing this on a production site. in fact, Jeff specifically stated he wanted to do this on his local machine.

Having said that, I’d done both. On Windows and Linux. It’s extremely easy on a Linux distro, especially if subversion was already installed.

That reminds me, I have to go sync my local install…

By: Trey Cruz

Trey Cruz — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:45:09 +0000

I’m with #2

By: Benedict Eastaugh

Benedict Eastaugh — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:22:31 +0000

Tracking a branch is preferable, in my experience; you get all the bug fixes as they go in, whereas tags aren’t updated—you have to switch to a new one when it’s created, so it’s no better than downloading zip files, convenience aside.

By: Benedict Eastaugh

Benedict Eastaugh — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:16:29 +0000

You know Matt runs off trunk, right, along with a large number of people who work on the core? That’s not to say we’re in our right minds, of course.

By: adam

adam — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:14:50 +0000

You can track stable versions of WordPress using Subversion… I converted my WordPress install to Subversion a bit back and the time savings is totally worth it, no more http://FTP. Just one command and it’s done:

svn sw http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.6/ .

The Codex guide to setting up WordPress to use Subveriosn is what I read to get started:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Ins.....Subversion

By: MikeT

MikeT — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:06:26 +0000

No one in their right mind would let a nightly build get anywhere near their “production blog.” I don’t care what blog suite you use. There’s a big difference between using a beta or RC that’s vetted by the developers and just grabbing a snapshot of the repository.